Tuesday, November 29, 2011

This has been on my mind for a while now and I've been going back and forth on whether or not to post it. I probably should have stood up that night and grabbed the microphone and spoke up, but I felt I was in a room of witch hunters and any thought to the contrary would be ignited.

I recently went to one of the entertainment Unions' membership meetings. (If you're quick, you can figure out which one, but I wont name it here.) It was long. Boring. Full of information that did not pertain to me and uninformed people asking questions like..."I heard from a friend that such and such.." Which were all shot down as untuths. I mean, we all know that rumors are usually not true. And in this case none of them were. Mostly rumors pertaining the the merging of two of the biggest entertainment unions in the country.

Oh we had some laughs though. A Mr. Calamari...that's his real name, rambled on for quite some time unintelligibly until the moderator smiled and said, "thank you." Because what else can you do when a crazy person drones on for a while without a real question or ending in site. And old, from what I can tell..Willie Nelson impersonator, would yell from time to time, "Speak into the mic!" To which one time he got the reply, "If I was any closer it would be down my throat." Thanks for the mental image old guy. Thanks.

One of the major topics was online piracy. Oh online piracy. I don't think I've ever been more ashamed of intelligent adults in my life. At least in the month of November.

The person leading the meeting, the vice president apparently, shouted at all of us a slew of distorted facts and just flat out lies. We were told that our work, as film and tv actors, is being downloaded by people all over the world. And when we go online and download movies, tv shows, the sites make money off of this, can capture our information and sell it on the black market. What the hell is wrong with you buddy. No offense, but the mean age of the population of the meeting was over 60. If not then some people my age have not aged well. So an older population who probably don't spend as much time online as the rest of us, nor are as savvy as the rest of us with the onlining and the interwebs and the facebooking. So you've just scared your first group of people into believing what you say. First of all, no one bit torrents anymore. (what he was alluding to about the downloading.) Almost all media is streamed right to your lap top or whatever device you have. So no. You're not downloading anything. No one is getting your information. You're watching something on a pirated site. Ok, so, that's bad. But you're safe from attackers.

(Talking to my grandparents, it seams that most of the older generation is afraid of the internet because of identity theft and hacking accounts. Basically privacy and security. So of course this guy hit home with his fer mongering.)

Next, said sites make money. Sure. Adsense by Google is amazing. It's on this blog as a matter of fact. I've made....nothing with it, but who really visits this blog? The VP made it out that Adsense is an evil company. Well...It's Google. So take that as you will. (He made it seam like they were 2 different companies) He then proceeded to vilify Google for placing adds on these pirate sites. Well. No. You can't do that. Google doesn't care what's on your site so much. There is an agreement you sign, but they're hands off. Ads are just put up by the site owner. Not google. So now a whole room full of people hate Google and think that people in Russia have their SS#'s and bank accounts. True story.

Then he lays into Netflix. Saying how it's also doing the same thing and people are downloading (again...wrong) our work as actors and we're not seeing money for it. Well. I hate to tell you this, but those contracts you negotiate for us? Yeah, we sign away our work to the studio, producer, who ever owns the piece. So they can do whatever they want with it. And if they want Netflix to stream it to the world well then there it is. You've already been compensated. Stop whining.

People were complaining about Netflix and you tube and hulu. How their work, shows and films they've been in are online for people to see and they don't see any money. Of course not. You've already seen that money. The people who own the films are displaying it just like they're allowed according to the contracts. Be happy people are watching your work.

So to sum it up. A room full of approx 250 people hate Google, hate adsense (that weird ad company that they don't know is Google), hate Netflix and youtube and hulu, and think Russion computer geniuses are going to sell their info on the black market. You know, in the booth next to where they sell babies.

On top of that...yes it gets worse..his ranting had a positive side. He made almost a room full of people FOR thePROTECT IP Actin the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act(SOPA) in the House of Representatives. He said how good thes legislature are. THESE ARE BAD pieces of legislature. The best explanation I've found is here down below. Watch it. be educated and spread the word.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Sometimes a notice goes across my screen and I have to stop and just take it all in.
This one isn't too out there,
but come on reality Tv. So now we're psychically designing for ghosts?

I'm also no ghost expert, I mean I've seen Ghostbusters more times
than I can count, but doesn't messing with a haunted house just make it worse?

Have we learned nothing from poltergeist?

CONCEPT: A DESIGNER WILL WORK IN TANDEM WITH A RENOWNED PSYCHIC
TO RENOVATE, REMODEL, AND REDECORATE HOUSES THAT ARE BELIEVED TO BE
POSSESSED BY A PARANORMAL ENTITY, TRANSFORMING
THEM FROM "HAUNTED" TO "HARMONIOUS." THINK "DIVINE DESIGN" MEETS "GHOST HUNTERS."

SEEKING:
[ INTERIOR DESIGNER ]
FEMALE, 30s, BRITISH (REAL ACCENT), EXPERT IN THE FIELD OF INTERIOR DESIGN,
PREFERABLY WITH KNOWLEDGE OF ARCHITECTURE, FENG SHUI, POWER
TOOLS OR RELATED EXPERTISE. SHE IS CHARISMATIC, SASSY, ATTRACTIVE,
PERSONABLE, COSMOPOLITAN, HAS LOTS OF ENERGY AND CAN CARRY
A SHOW. ACTS AS THE VOICE OF REASON. ISNT AFRAID TO PICK UP A
HAMMER AND GET HER HANDS DIRTY. SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED ONLY
FROM NY/LA/CHICAGO. Must submit reels or links to the talents website or YouTube video

But I mean, submit if you're an interior designer, who's a woman, and with a
British accent...and all the other requirements.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

I had a call back for Pericles with the American Bard Theater Company. I'm very excited about the prospect of working with this company. I've gotten to know a few members...as well as you can when communicating about castings and they really are a company I'd like to work with for no other reason than they are nice people! Anyway, we were given a few scenes worth of sides to prepare prior to the audition. And I did my homework as much as I could. And we just dove in. It was very relaxed and fun.

At one point during the one of the scenes Pericles comes in and surprises? startles? the fishermen (who we were reading as). During one of the runs through the scene I happened to be sitting in one of the rehearsal space's chairs. So what do you do? Fall out of the chair. That's right. It got a laugh. But then again, the three of us who were reading the sides all reacted in some huge way, so I think it was a laugh at the general commotion of the moment. So there is me, on the chair, on the floor, on my feet...the scene moves on. Well...the best laid plans, right? And the best impulsed ideas...I fell off the chair wrong. Some how my lower back collided with the corner of the chair. I didn't slide off completely. And it hurt. There is a huge black and blue mark on my back. I carry it as a badge of honor. A war wound? It's just now going away and starting to fade. It was my lower right side. I'm fairly indestructible I like to think. And I don't bruise too easily. So clearly I blame the chair. It was made of sturdier stuff than I thought. But the call back went fairly well. I can't quite judge this one. I mean I haven't heard back so I'm probably not cast. But then again, they're not really starting any work until January. So they could take their time with casting. Who knows. The only part I felt a little iffy about was the SURPRISE side they threw at us at the end. Not a big deal, I just didn't have too much time to play with it and think about it. So it was rough. But, that's also understood. It's a definite....who knows type thing.

While focusing on the ABT call back, I was also working on sides for the commercial night with the Actor's Green Room. OH AGR. They're amazing people. Truly. They hold contests almost daily for spots in their classes and joy of joys I managed to win a spot in their commercial night. What's a commercial night? Well I'll tell you!

Basically it's where you get to meet with a set number of agents or casting directors, perform a pre worked on piece of copy and go on your merry way.

Usually I hate these things. The industry members behind the tables usually look like they're not happy to be there and you get little to no feed back. Well the Actor's Green Room is doing something very right compared to all those other places. I got amazing feedback and a lot of it too. I re-met some people I've met recently and have been wanting to connect with. So it was nice that they saw me in a different light and saw that I'm making an effort with my career. I'm going out there trying to better myself. So now I've been going through the list of industry professionals I met, or re-met and have been sending out my thank-you's/hello's. Let's hope someone calls me in. Both rooms, the agents and the casting directors were VERY nice and had wonderful things to say, so here's hoping, no? There was a room of 5 agents with whom I like to think I had a very nice rapport mostly surrounding my last night. Take that Grandpa! See, it was a good idea NOT changing my name. They took their time and wrote out feedback for all the actors they saw that night. Even if it was just a few words, it was and is valuable stuff. And the other room had 5 casting directors who were wonderful to meet with and perform for. I was given positive notes on my reading and asked to do it again, but a different take on it. Some how it came out very threatening. Which is fine because I clearly took the note. So go me!